


a garden full of citrus trees

by missvandone



Series: a midsummer night's dream [1]
Category: British Royalty RPF, The Spanish Princess (TV), The Tudors (TV)
Genre: F/M, mentions of Anne Boleyn, or purgatory, some sort of deathbed dream
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-08
Updated: 2020-05-08
Packaged: 2021-03-02 17:07:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,954
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24080317
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/missvandone/pseuds/missvandone
Summary: King Henry VIII's death is near, everybody knows that, even he himself. His decrepit body can no longer function properly, years of enduring his ulcer and deteriorating health has finally taken its toll.The old King, delirious and suffering, drifts to a sleepless dream.But a young boy, with shaggy red hair and soft smile, waits for him on a garden full of citrus trees.
Relationships: Catherine of Aragon/Henry VIII of England
Series: a midsummer night's dream [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1802560
Comments: 20
Kudos: 80





	a garden full of citrus trees

> “ _But I, being poor, have only my dreams; I have spread my dreams under your feet; Tread softly because you tread on my dreams. – William Butler Yeats._ ”

King Henry VIII is dying, and he knows it.

His body, after many years holding up and enduring a painful ulcer, is finally giving up. He has lasted more than he thought he ever would, his pained leg has cost him many sleepless nights.

Many of his advisors, churchmen, and councilmen are sitting around his bedroom waiting for the exact moment when he passes away so they can run and get their claws on his sweet innocent boy.

 _Oh, Edward… my darling boy_ , he cannot help to think, saddened by the thought of leaving him at the mercy of the vultures.

His Queen, Catherine Parr, ever so attentive runs to his side when he cannot contain the pained murmur he lets out.

Not for his pains and aching heart, but for his young boy.

Henry drifts to the lands of Morpheus, hoping he can catch a break.

**[ – – – ]**

The King wakes up in a lush meadow under sunny clear skies, nothing like he has ever seen before. While standing up, he looks down, and surprisingly he can see his two own legs –something he hasn't been able to do since his youthhood.

He spares a look at his own hands, marbled at how youthful and less rough –after many years of hunting and waring war against France– they look, sans-wrinkles, and any calluses.

Henry cannot help but rub one of his hands on his chin, marbled again about how less constricted he feels without his beard.

A bell-like laugh suddenly breaks the silence of the meadow.

The youthful king –for he does not have to look himself in the mirror to confirm it, he just knows– turns around and sees a small figure running towards him. As the small figure approaches, he discerns that it is an infant boy. Possibly not older than seven years old.

His shaggy red locks and bright blue eyes paired with his very pale complexion and red cheeks remind him of what a cherub would look like.

"Follow me! Follow me!" he excitedly asks him to, even daring to grab one of his hands and pull him toward the density of the nearest forest.

They are running, the boy has surprisingly amazing strength, through the forest. Everything is a blur of greens, lights, and shades until suddenly splashes of yellows and oranges appear in his line of vision.

Out of nowhere, the scent of citrus floods his nostrils.

As though on cue, the little boy starts to slow down.

Henry is no longer on the forest but surrounded by citrus trees, a plantation or garden of some sort, under the brightest sun he has ever witnessed. The ground beneath his feet is no longer green and mushy, but sandy and coarse –not like a beach, but a gravel road.

"Mother! Mother! Mother!" the boy exhales loudly, visibly joyous and almost exaltedly, searching for his mother.

The child turns towards him and smiles brightly, happiness all over his face.

Henry can't help but kneel in front of him and put a hand on his small shoulder, his joyous mood, and innocent nature getting to him.

"Where is your mother, boy?"

" _Madre_ is right there! Come! Come!"

It has been a long time since Henry has heard anyone speak any other language but English –despite hearing a little French here and there, though that is only because English borrows words from the damned language– and especially that one. He recalls hearing his Mary and Ambassador Chapuys hold a conversation a few years back in Spanish, but his mind was somewhere else and he did not want to pay too much attention to it for surely, memories of a certain someone lovingly speaking to him would flock back to his mind.

"Hal! My love!" a sweet voice, far but not too far, reached his ears.

Henry almost flinched, he had not heard that sweet voice in many years. Her native accent, despite many years of living and ruling beside him in England, still traceable to his ear.

"Come! Come!" the boy chanted excitedly, trotting towards the front.

The first thing he registered – sixteen feet away from the boy and him– was a huge citrus tree, fruitful and healthy-like. Then, some sort of rug, looking richly made in threads of browns and golds, placed under it. And then a womanly figure, reclining on the trunk of the big tree.

When his feet finally stepped a foot on the rug, what he saw caught his breath.

Catherine of Aragon had been the most beautiful woman in all Christendom in her prime, he knew Thomas More had said it once or twice while he fought for the divorce and he had always made deaf ears to it.

_But for heaven's sake!_

She really had been the most beautiful creature he had ever seen.

Now before him, she lay there, barefoot, looking as beautiful as the first time he saw her. Her long red hair fell to her waist unbound in curls, no hood or jeweled crown on her head, a serene expression on her face. Henry had always loved how pale and soft her skin had been, the bloom of color on her fair cheeks when shyness overcame her, her plump and rosy lips when she graced you with a smile and how she always, even after hunting for several hours, always smelled of citrus and roses.

Her eyes, which had been closed before, opened as if she knew of their presence.

"Oh, my sweet Hal!" She looked at the boy with such love, her blue eyes twinkling like the stars. Then, she opened her arms wide open. "Come here!"

"Madre!" the little boy rejoiced.

He jumped into her open arms, burrowing his little head on her bosom.

Henry was entranced, watching the tender scene with something akin to wonder growing in his chest. Catherine, not sparing him even a look, was whispering something in Hal's ear and after finishing whatever she was telling him, pressed a kiss on his forehead and patted him on his bottom.

"On your way, go on!"

And the boy ran away from them, laughing in the sun.

"Catherine."

Now she did look at him, her face completely devoid of any emotion, and inclined her head as far as she could while reclining on that tree.

"Your Grace."

"He called you… mother, in Spanish."

She smiled at that.

"Of course, he did. He is my son." She shrugged her shoulders as if it was plainly obvious. "Our little Hal."

Henry closed his eyes and gulped, those words hurting like a punch on the stomach.

"He is?"

"Look at him, Henry." Her voice was soft as a feather. "Harry, look at him."

He opened his eyes when he heard her say his old nickname.

It had been so long since anyone had dared to call him by that name.

He turned and looked to his left, seeing the boy –his young Henry– try and pick a fruit from a low branch of a big citrus tree a bit far from them. His long curls were the same color as Catherine's and his, the pale skin of his face flushed red from the effort he was doing while on his tip-toes. He remembered the big blue eyes he had seen when first seeing him… just like his and his first wife.

"Oh, Cat! Our boy!" he cried, his heart full of sadness and sorrow from what could have been. _"Our boy!"_

King Henry VIII fell to his knees on the rug.

"Yet you said I didn't give you a son."

He extended his hands like a beggar asking for alms. She had always known how to ease his mind and how to give him peace to his troubled heart.

She smiled sadly.

"I had to… I had to." His voice breaking at the last word. "My duty to the crown was above everything else. You have… you have to understand that."

Catherine's bell-like-laugh was a hit to his ego.

"Your duty to your crown and country, ah?" she nodded incredulously. "or your duty to your lust?"

He tried to take a step back but remembered he was still on his knees, while she rose, crossing her arms under her bosom. Henry tried not to think about that time when she wore the same dress while sparring with swords with him or when he met her while she read a book in the garden.

"I remember clearly how you said once that if my affections for you could blow away like lust, you would forget me." Her eyes glistened with unshed tears and smiled tiredly, the mirror of someone who had lost everything. "Yet until my last breath, my only thoughts were about you. It was always you. It is always been you."

He quickly rose and took a step forward, his hand raised with almost shyness to touch her again, after so many years.

"I saw what you did to Anne Boleyn, the poor woman."

He snorted, incredulous of what he was hearing, then let a burst of bark-like laughter.

"Poor Anne!?"

"We all know she was innocent. Her only sin was marrying you, but who I am to judge her on that? I made the same mistake."

He hissed, anger starting to run through his veins.

"How dare you say that?" he took a step forward, red tinting his cheeks. "To me! Your husband! The father of your children!"

She also took a step forward, the bodice on her bosom brushing against his chest, raising her chin insolently.

Catherine had never stepped down from a fight.

Not even with him.

"Now you are my husband?" she laughed bitterly, brushing her petite nose against his, probably on her tiptoes. "And I thought you never fathered any children with me?"

Her blue eyes, as bright as the morning sky, had always been something that made him lose his mind. The way they shinned with knowledge and fierceness had trapped him since the first time he saw her up-close.

"You…"

She smiled wickedly.

"You will be remembered, Harry. Just as you had wished for." She patted his cheek, Catherine had always liked him beardless, while still smiling. "But not for your good deeds, or your wars, but for your cruelty and tyranny."

Then she walked past him, straight towards Hal.

"The man who had everything and left it all for a woman, whom he killed when he grew tired of her."

"A King who killed his own wives and moved on to the next candidate."

He closed his eyes.

"Do not even for a moment think you didn't kill me, Harry. Your actions became the rope around my throat."

Her bell-like laugh was a slap to him.

"I loved you." He whispered, chocking on his tears. "I still do. You made me the happiest."

"And yet look what your love has brought us."

**[ – – – ]**

King Henry woke from his sleep in a state of deliria and confusion. He was surrounded by his wife, Catherine Parr, his political advisors, and those closest to him. He was happy that at least his children would not see him in such a pathetic state.

His end was near.

He could feel it.

"Catherine?" he managed to say out loud, almost choking on his own tongue. "Forgive me. "

Queen Catherine grabbed his hand and squeezed it tightly, confusion all over her matured but pretty face. He could see a bit of her blonde hair peeking under the jeweled gable, reminding him a bit of her.

The first Catherine.

_His first wife._

"Forgive me, Cat."

**Author's Note:**

> hello, there.
> 
> After seeing the two sneak peeks of the last season of The Spanish Princess, I couldn't help myself and wrote this short piece.
> 
> Long ago, after I studied the Tudors era and all its drama, I came to a very unpopular conclusion. King Henry VIII, already going through his third marriage, wanted to emulate the marriage he had with his first wife, Catherine of Aragon.
> 
> Hear me out: all of his wives, without counting Anne Boleyn who was the opposite for obvious reasons, emulated or resembled Catherine in some way. Many historians had the same thought as I did.
> 
> So, after the new TSP content we were given yesterday, I ended up thinking: did he miss her after divorcing her? or did he regret his decisions? and if there is an afterlife, did they talk about what happened?
> 
> And the romantic in me, despite how cruel he was with her and his other wives, had to write this.
> 
> Hope you liked this and leave a comment with any of your thoughts.
> 
> See ya!


End file.
